


We Used To Live Here

by softlyforgotten



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, The Young Veins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon shrugged. "You're allowed to be mean," he said. "I mean, it doesn't help your argument much, but when your band breaks up it fucking sucks, and you're allowed to be mean if you want. I can deal."</p><p>After a moment, Pete said, "It stops sucking, though, right?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Used To Live Here

Ashlee met him at the door. She opened it and made a face, and Brendon pulled one back at her. She smiled slightly and said, "Hey, sweet."

"Hi," Brendon said, and gave her a hug when she leaned forward. She looked tired, bags under her eyes, and Brendon was willing to bet it hadn't been Bronx keeping her up. "You disconnected the internet yet? Stolen his cell?"

Ashlee grimaced. "You know what he's like."

"Where is he?" Brendon asked, and Ashlee nodded out towards the back. Brendon touched her shoulder lightly on the way past. "It'll be alright," he said.

"Thanks for coming," she said.

Brendon went out to the deck, where Pete was strumming a series of badly played, out of tune minor chords on his ukulele, Bronx stacking plastic blocks together by his feet. When Brendon hesitated at the screen door, Pete looked up at him solemnly and picked a series of notes. It took Brendon a moment to realise he was playing the theme to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and Brendon rolled his eyes and slid the door aside, stepping through and leaning down to ruffle Bronx's downy hair.

"Hey, buddy," he said, and Bronx blinked up at him curiously, chewing on a plastic dinosaur. Pete was looking away again, gazing out over their backyard, and Brendon sat down next to him, bumped their shoulders together.

"You're fast," Pete said, voice low. "Like, an hour and a half if you got good traffic at this time, and you don't check the net that obsessively—"

"Spencer told me," Brendon said. "He called."

"Right," Pete said. He looked at Brendon, holding his face so tight, like a little kid trying not to cry. Brendon felt his own mouth twist down. He hated it when Pete was sad. It turned him back into a sixteen year old kid, incompetent and awed in front of an idol he had stolen and adopted and made new; someone who had turned out, all the odds with him but unexpected all the same, to be just another person. Pete drew a breath and said, "How's Spencer?"

"Alright," Brendon said. "Spencer's a freak, you know, he likes those family reunion things."

Pete laughed. "There's got to be a trick to it," he said. "We should call the Smiths and find out."

"Prozac in the water," Brendon said, which was a cheap shot, but made Pete laugh again all the same.

Pete said, "I was thinking we should have one of those."

Brendon toed off his shoes. He wasn't wearing socks under his sneakers, but he didn't get sneered at for things like that anymore. He leaned back on the sun-warmed wood of the dock and said, carefully, "Yeah?"

"Sure," Pete said. "It'll be great. William and Tom have already patched everything up, we can get everyone 'round, we can have Greta and Darren and Bob and Chris, and Ryan and Jon, and, and—"

Brendon leaned over and eased the ukulele from Pete's grip. He said, "I think you have to wait a couple of years for a reunion, anyway, like. Isn't that the point?"

"That's for bands," Pete said. He made a half-aborted gesture with his hands, like he was going to grab the ukulele back and thought better of it.

"What are we talking about?" Brendon asked. He hummed slightly, fiddling with the pegs and trying to get it more in tune. It wasn't so bad. Made carelessly, but not so old that Brendon couldn't get it sounding passable.

"A barbeque," Pete said. When Brendon glanced over at him, he could see the way Pete had set his chin: mulish, looking younger and younger with each passing moment. "I can have a fucking barbecue, can't I? Spencer would help."

"Spencer likes flipping sausages and pretending like he's a real man," Brendon said, trying a C-scale and wincing. "You give him that opportunity, he'll help you kill someone."

"That's what I need," Pete said. "Unswerving, unquestioning devotion."

"No," Brendon said. "That's what you want." Pete looked at him sharply, and Brendon tried to soften it with a smile, a half-shrug. He said, "Real life doesn't work like that. Not really. Not even for people, like, three times as messed up as you are."

"Some people get it," Pete challenged him. "Some people who are pretty fucking normal in the grand scheme of things, too, or close to it, whatever, they get it, you should fucking know that—"

"They don't get it for that long," Brendon said. He tried the scale again, and it sounded better this time. Pete made a small, soft sound, maybe approval for the ukulele, probably something else, and Brendon looked up at him. "You're just being mean now, anyway."

"Right," Pete said. "Sorry."

Brendon shrugged. "You're allowed to be mean," he said. "I mean, it doesn't help your argument much, but when your band breaks up it fucking sucks, and you're allowed to be mean if you want. I can deal." He smiled again, but Pete didn't smile back, didn't even look at him.

"It hurts," Pete said.

"Yeah," Brendon agreed. Pete looked at him, eyes huge and wide, like he was waiting for Brendon to say something else, but Brendon didn't have anything else to say just then.

The door scraped open, and they both looked up. "You boys hungry?" Ashlee asked. At the sound of his mom's voice, Bronx made a little gleeful noise and stuck his arms up in the air, demanding attention. Ashlee said, "In a bit, honey," and, "I can make something up quick for you guys if you want."

"Can I have a smoothie?" Pete asked.

"Oh, fuck, me too?" Brendon grinned widely. "I haven't a smoothie in – fuck, man, do you guys have bananas?"

Ashlee nodded. "And mango," she said. "You want both?"

"Please," Brendon said, and Pete nodded. Ashlee smiled at them and went back inside, and Bronx made a grumpy sound and started to chew on Pete's big toe in retribution.

"She's been making me eat stuff all day," Pete said quietly. Brendon raised his eyebrows. "I think it's the only thing she thinks she can do, or whatever."

"Did you tell her before you told the internet?" Brendon asked, and Pete looked guilty. Brendon sighed. "Jesus, Pete."

"We talked to, like, a lawyer," Pete said. "And PR people, and—"

"This is why you shouldn't fight with Patrick," Brendon said. "You start thinking that nobody else cares about you." Pete hissed, but Brendon pushed on. "You can't let Spencer and me find out from fucking Twitter, Pete, it's not fair. You do things like that and other people are going to think that you've told the people close to you, and they're just not that high up in your good books, so they're going to stay away, everyone's going to stay away because they think you don't want them, and it's stupid, alright? It's fucking stupid."

"Who should I call," Pete said, voice shaking, "come on, Brendon, if you're the fucking expert, who should I call and tell that I broke up my band—"

"Well, probably not Patrick and Joe and Andy," Brendon said. "Because that kind of egotistical shit is half the problem." Pete started, and Brendon scooted closer, pulling Pete into a one-armed hug for a moment. "Sorry," he said. "That was unfair."

Bronx was methodically hitting Pete's knee with two wooden blocks. Brendon would swear he had a beat going there. He picked up the ukulele again and tried to play around it, in time with it. Bronx beamed up at him.

"He's had to listen to my screeching all day," Pete said.

"I don't think a ukulele can screech," Brendon said. "You got a violin hidden away somewhere? That's maybe a bit maudlin even for you."

Pete laughed. After a moment, he said, "It stops sucking, though, right?"

Brendon shrugged. "Sort of," he said. Pete looked at him, and Brendon smiled at him, said, "Eventually. I'm hoping."

"Jesus," Pete said, and shook his head. "Is Ryan one of the people I should have called, then, the people who shouldn't find out over Twitter?"

"Pete," Brendon said, and Ashlee pushed open the door again and came out, holding two tall glasses. "Thanks," Brendon said, and she smiled at him.

"Come sit with me," Pete said, and Ashlee put her hand on his head, not like a petting or stroking gesture, just resting it there.

"I have to put Bronx to bed," she said. "After that, though."

"Kiss goodnight, Bronx," Pete said, and when he leaned down, Bronx smacked him wet and loving on the lips. Pete waited until Ashlee had taken him inside to wipe off the excess slobber, though Brendon didn't think Bronx would be very offended. Pete said, "That wasn't a very nice goodnight of me."

"I think he'll forgive you," Brendon said.

"I've gotten lucky before," Pete said, and Brendon bumped his forehead against Pete's shoulder for a moment, the knobbly bone there. Pete smiled at him.

"I really didn't come here to tell you off." Brendon leaned his head to the side, peering up at Pete, kind of enjoying the strange angle.

"I know," Pete agreed. "You're a good kid." He grinned, and it almost reached his eyes. "A good investment." Brendon laughed softly, but stopped when Pete said, "You all were."

"Let's not do this now," Brendon said. "I came to talk about you. And I'm not nearly drunk enough, man, and I only just got rid of Spencer for the week. You've got no idea what living with him is like, seriously, he keeps making me hot drinks and trying to get me to talk about my feelings—"

"Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly the way Spencer learned how to deal with emo fits," Pete said, dryly, and Brendon pressed his lips firmly together. He didn't glare, but only because today wasn't a day to get mad at Pete. Pete touched the small of Brendon's back gently, said, "Dude, hey. I know you don't want to, but—"

"Nah," Brendon said. "Really, let's not. If this a diversion tactic, you don't need it, you can tell me to shut up and I'll totally just sit here and enjoy your wife's smoothies."

"It's not a diversion tactic," Pete said. Brendon rolled his eyes up at him and Pete smoothed his hand down Brendon's spine. "I bet you haven't even noticed what shirt you're wearing," he said.

"I don't get dressed in the dark," Brendon said.

"Not what I meant," Pete told him.

"Yeah." Brendon sat up properly, reached for the ukulele and started playing the lullaby his mom used to sing. He couldn't remember the name. "I always notice," he said.

"And you tell me off about Twitter," Pete said.

It was a lie, almost, Brendon thought. He thought about sitting up one night, until even Shane – who didn't seem to need sleep – was snoring softly down the hall. He'd finally set his guitar aside well after four in the morning, not because he'd been tired, but because he'd been playing the same three chords over and over and they were stuck in his head without going anywhere. It had been enough for a night; he had put his guitar down and walked out of his room, and when he'd leaned against the wall in the hallway he had felt the grain of the plaster against his back. It was only then that he had realised what shirt he was wearing.

Pete looked at Brendon and said, "So what now?"

Brendon huffed a laugh. "I don't know, dude. I can stay as long as you want. But if I were you, I'd drink my smoothie, and then I'd go and make dinner for me and my wife, and have a bath, and then watch a movie with Ash and go to sleep. Get an early night."

"I don't know if I'll be able to sleep," Pete admitted.

"Yeah," Brendon said. "I figured. But you can try, and I bet you anything Ashlee will sit up with you if you can't."

"She did last night," Pete said. He swallowed and said, "I have no fucking idea what she's doing with me."

"I do," Brendon said, not automatic but fervent, and Pete looked at him, eyes bright with gratitude. Brendon picked up his glass and drank all of his smoothie in one, throat working. It was thick and cold and sweet, chunks of fruit in it the way Brendon liked. Brendon had known even before Spencer finished the sentence earlier today that he was going to go hang out with Pete, and he'd guessed, too, what would come up inevitably as a result, but he wasn't quite prepared for the sense memory of drinking smoothies like this, aged sixteen and starving for attention, money, love, anything. The smoothie filled him up, good as a meal. Brendon shuddered with the sudden cold.

"Can you play any of our songs on that?" Pete asked suddenly.

Brendon raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you're giving me the proper tiny fanboy credit I deserve." Pete laughed, and Brendon played a theatrical ripple of notes on the ukulele, and then the beginning of 'Grand Theft Autumn', strumming it hard and fast like the acoustic version Patrick did. He didn't sing, but he said, "You're a fucking masochist, Wentz."

"Yeah," Pete agreed, and Brendon played the whole song through. He sang in his head, but not aloud.

Ashlee came out at the end. She glared at Brendon, but he shrugged, smiling crookedly, and she relaxed a little.

"That was quick," Pete said.

"He was sleepy," Ashlee said. She sat between them, put her hand on Pete's knee. "You haven't drunk your smoothie."

"In a minute," Pete said. The phone rang inside, and Ashlee stood up again. Her hands were trembling very slightly, Brendon noticed. He wondered what she'd do when there was nothing left for her to busy herself with, nothing but Pete in the rawest sense of himself to take care of. Maybe that was what she was waiting for, the chance to show Pete. Brendon figured they'd be okay, and told Pete so.

"Thank you," Pete said. He drew his knees up to his chest and said, "It's like, a weird mix of not knowing how much is real and how much I con myself into feeling for the sake of it, and part of me is still thinking up how many songs I can write out of this, and then I remember that Patrick's probably not going to sing them, and it's just, I've spent fucking years planning the ways I was gonna crash and burn, and not one of them was this, I never, ever wanted to be this kind of asshole, with the house in LA and the paparazzi following me when I go to the fucking grocery store with my kid and hosting award shows, and – all the people I've ever been, they'd fucking hate me right now."

"That's why you grow up," Brendon said. "So you can learn why it would be stupid to hate yourself for finding something that makes you happy."

Pete barked a laugh, hoarse and unpleasant. "This doesn't make me happy," he said. "None of that stuff does."

"No," Brendon said. "But it's the stuff you gotta put up with. Your life's pretty awesome, Pete. You know that."

"Yeah," Pete said. He drew in a sharp breath. "It's probably going to take me a while to remember how to be happy again."

"That's okay," Brendon said.

Pete rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Jesus, though," he said. "I'll go crazy if it takes me half as long as it's taking you."

Brendon looked away. "Now you're being mean again," he said, and Ashlee came out, holding out the house phone, a bright, anxious light in her eyes.

"It's Joe," she said.

Brendon stood up, bent to kiss Pete's head. "I'm going to take off," he said. "Have an early night, Pete."

Pete caught his hand and squeezed it. "Thank you," he said, and Brendon grinned at him.

"I'll see you later," he said.

He fell into step with Ashlee, who slung an easy arm around his shoulders. Behind him, he heard Pete say, "Hi," and looked at Ashlee, raised his eyebrows. Ashlee shrugged, smiled quickly.

"Lord knows," she said. At the door, she hugged him tight and warm. "Thank you."

"You guys'll be okay," Brendon said. "Really, I think you will."

"Thank you," Ashlee repeated. She smiled, almost shy. "I think so, too."

Brendon nodded, and stepped away. He got into his car and honked quietly when he backed out of the driveway, mindful of Bronx sleeping inside. Ashlee was still standing at the door waving when he drove out and lost sight of her, and he liked that about her. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that he thought they'd be okay. Pete was better with her, better with the years, and Brendon thought that this wasn't remotely close to the worst thing that could have happened. Quietly destroyed as Pete might be, he wasn't completely broken just now. The fact that he'd been able to talk at all about it tonight was proof of that, Brendon thought, although the other things he'd talked about were a pretty good sign that he was hurting, and needed to hurt others with that.

He looked at himself in the rear view mirror, arched back in his seat awkwardly so he could see his chest, ran his fingers over the faded gold letters. "Why the fuck did you even take Phys. Ed," he said, and then he reached for his cell and called Shane, putting it on speakerphone on the seat next to him.

"Hey, man," Shane said. "How's Pete?"

"As expected," Brendon said. "It's okay. Joe called just as I left. And Ash is taking care of him."

"That's good," Shane said. "Hey, Regan's here – we're thinking about ordering a pizza, but we can wait until you're closer to home, if you want?"

Brendon looked out the window, turned right sharply. "No, that's alright," he said. "Listen, I'm not coming home tonight."

Shane was quiet for a moment. "Yeah?" he ventured finally. "Everything alright?"

"It's good," Brendon said. "It's all gonna be okay."

"Okay, then," Shane said. "I'll see you whenever."

"Bye," Brendon said. Shane hung up first, and Brendon let the car fill with the sound of a dial tone for a minute. Then he drove in silence, without turning the radio on, without singing to himself or even drumming his fingers on the wheel. He turned his cell completely off, after a moment's thought; Shane might have guessed something more, and Brendon didn't want anymore calls, not from Shane or Pete or Spencer.

He drove in silence, and it was nice, just the quiet purr of the engine. The spray of gravel when he pulled up outside of Ryan's house made him jump, louder than expected, good as a doorbell. It wasn't how Brendon had pictured any sort of entrance, and he sat still for a moment, heart beating fast.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye made him get out of his car, lock it methodically, tuck his hands in his pockets and start up towards the porch. Ryan was leaning in the doorway, front door open, staring at Brendon, and Brendon took each step carefully, like a judgement, like something important. It kind of was.

Ryan's mouth was very slightly open, eyes huge and fixed on Brendon. Brendon ran his hand along the wooden rail as he went up the steps of Ryan's porch. He was very close to the door now, close enough to see Ryan's chest rising and falling with each breath, close enough to know that Pete was right and it never stopped hurting, but Brendon thought he knew a way he could deal with it. He walked slow enough that he could think about what happened next with great deliberation, know exactly how it would feel to press his forehead against Ryan's shoulder and lean in close, let Ryan grasp at his old t-shirt, with trembling fingers that brushed Brendon's ribs.

He looked at Ryan and smiled, a little lopsided. After a moment, he said, "Hi."


End file.
